Thursday, November 27, 2008

Here is an interesting story from Australia: "The Bishops Commission for Liturgy is inviting Australian composers to submit new compositions or adapted settings that they have already composed to the new translation of the Roman Missal. The call comes after the Holy See granted official recognition to the Order of the Mass in the new translation. The Order of the Mass includes the parts of the Mass most frequently sung at celebrations of the Eucharist, the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Memorial Acclamation and Agnus Dei."

It raises a question in my own mind. Musicasacra.com has a huge collection of settings already prepared, in English, based on chant, with the new English words. They are free for the downloading and use in every parish in the English speaking world. You can sing them as soon as the translation is approved for use.

But you can't download them. You can't even look at them. Why? Because ICEL demands that they stay behind bars until all commercial, for-profit publishers can release theirs at the same time. So there they sit, unused and unviewed, kept from you by the force of law that implicitly backs ICEL's demand.

I think it is about time that ICEL permit them to at least be examined, don't you?